


The Aura of Nostalgia

by 3ALover



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Depression, Future Fic, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 21:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3ALover/pseuds/3ALover
Summary: Yuzuru hadn’t been in Toronto in eight years. The last time he came, he was doing a workshop for kids in the city that helped him become the ‘legendary’ Yuzuru Hanyu weeks before he quit skating forever. Looking down at his watch, he almost wished he still wasn’t there. It wasn’t that Yuzuru hated Toronto, or that he didn’t have fond memories of his time there, but rather the nostalgia made him mopey. So much had changed and yet he could still look out at the ice and see himself warming up before morning session, a lone body clad in black sweeping across the ice. He had been so young and so hopeful and so full of fight.Yuzuru lost that fight along time ago, when he was branded a disgrace and the hero-worship died away to pretending he didn’t exist.





	The Aura of Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> MIND THE WARNINGS! This one is HEAVY. 
> 
> The title is from a quote I cannot find again. I am so sorry. 
> 
> I'm also sorry for your tissue boxes. Pooh-san's brothers and sisters are going to get a workout on this one.

Yuzuru hadn’t been in Toronto in eight years. The last time he came, he was doing a workshop for kids in the city that helped him become the ‘legendary’ Yuzuru Hanyu weeks before he quit skating forever. Looking down at his watch, he almost wished he still wasn’t there. It wasn’t that Yuzuru hated Toronto, or that he didn’t have fond memories of his time there, but rather the nostalgia made him mopey. So much had changed and yet he could still look out at the ice and see himself warming up before morning session, a lone body clad in black sweeping across the ice. He had been so young and so hopeful and so full of fight. 

Yuzuru lost that fight along time ago, when he was branded a disgrace and the hero-worship died away to pretending he didn’t exist. 

Yuzuru had been twenty-six when his body finally gave up and he was forced to retire after the worst season of his life. He always dreamed of going out on top, so to go out with a fifteenth-place finish at his final worlds had been the worst thing to happen to him at that point. Brian told him he could come back for another season and at least go out on a high note with an easy program that wouldn’t aggravate the wear and tear his knees and ankles had withstood over the years. He almost did, until the actual worst thing that could ever happen to him happened.

Yuzuru was on a connection from LAX to Toronto when his father finally contacted him and told him news that shattered his entire life: his mother had been in a car accident and it wasn’t good. Yuzuru had flown right back to Japan, and was there when his family said goodbye to the woman who gave everything for him to achieve his dreams. 

Losing his mother had broken Yuzuru in a way nothing else in his entire life had. He didn’t skate again. He didn’t host any ice shows. He never set foot on an ice rink ever again. Even now, looking out at the ice from the second-floor lounge window, Yuzuru’s heart ached. His mother gave decades of her life so he could live on that ice, and she never got to get that time with her family and loved ones back again because a drunk driver took her life. 

After his mother died, the media respected Yuzuru’s privacy, but having no media attention combined with a broken heart and damaged soul made Yuzuru search for ways to stop the pain. He started with the easiest route and became addicted to his pain medication. He had enough injuries in his life it was easy to get prescriptions for anything and everything. With the numbing high of painkillers in his body, it made him less careful about his choices. Yuzuru went out to clubs and parties and hooked up openly with any man he found attractive. He would drink all night, take pills, do party drugs with clubgoers, and fuck anybody who made a pass at him. By the time the season started, four months after his mother’s death, Brian had to be the one to announce Yuzuru wouldn’t be returning because Yuzuru never bothered answering anybody’s calls to see about training. His father begged him to get help, his sister and her husband offered to let him stay with them and take care of him, and he knew that the news had gotten back to Brian and Tracy because Tracy kept sending him letters with pamphlets about rehab facilities. 

Yuzuru used one of those pamphlets to cut lines of cocaine once with a guy he never even learned the name of before spending a weekend holed up in a hotel room fucking and doing drugs with him. 

The media caught him after Brian’s announcement brought scrutiny back to the ‘Legendary’ Yuzuru Hanyu. The scandal broke when a guy Yuzuru accepted MDMA from and agreed to go back to his apartment and have sex all night turned out to be a sleazy reporter. They left the club together, and there were cameras waiting everywhere to capture a Yuzuru Hanyu with eyes dilated from the drugs and a mesh top that showed all the bruises and scratches from his last one-night-stand, as well as the way his ribs stood out because he stopped really eating meals after his mother died. It was hard to enjoy food when it reminded him of the bento boxes his mother used to send him to the rink with every day.

For about two weeks, the whole world went wild with the news that Yuzuru Hanyu, the God of figure skating, had fallen from grace. After that, his name wasn’t mentioned in the news ever again. All the monuments to him in Sendai were quietly removed. His name was taken off of plaques about his hard work to help the victims of the great earthquake. He was someone nobody wanted their businesses and charities associated with. The rejection of his donation to his home rink because they didn’t want anyone to know they got it from him was what really made Yuzuru realize he had hit rock bottom. After that, he went into a rehab facility for a short while and then moved in with his sister and her husband. He lived with them for a year and a half until they had a baby and he realized he would be in their way. 

Having nobody and nothing had really made Yuzuru realize that all the things he did to numb the pain just ruined his life for good. He worked designing costumes anonymously to make money for the past six years. He lived in a small apartment not far from his father’s house and his sister’s house. He babysat his nieces sometimes and came to family meals at his sister’s home. He rarely had contact with anybody but his family. He was well, though. He was working to build a life for himself still after destroying his old one. That’s why, when he received an invitation to come to celebrate 20th Anniversary of the Cricket Club just like all the skaters who ever trained there, he decided that he would go. 

As he stood there now, he didn’t regret that decision, even though he still hadn’t gone downstairs to join the party. He arrived early and went up to look at the ice alone for a while and just remember. Now, however, the party must be in full swing and he needed to go down there and join them. Before he could, though, he heard the door open and a child’s giggle accompanied by a man’s chuckle.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought nobody would be up here.” Yuzuru closed his eyes as he heard a voice he hadn’t heard since the summer before he quit everything. Yuzuru turned to look at the door and, for the first time in years, he looked at big, brown eyes framed by long lashes that he knew so well. 

“Hello, Javi,” he greeted softly.

Javier’s face was a picture of shock. His eyes widened and he paled some. “Y-Yuzu?” He smiled suddenly. “Oh my God, you came!” He crossed the room and, to Yuzuru’s shock, pulled him into a hug. “Wow, it’s been what, nine, ten years?” he asked, pulling back to look Yuzuru over. “Brian never thought you would come, even though they got your RSVP!”

“Papa?” 

Yuzuru looked down at that voice and his breath caught as he looked into the face of a little girl with curly brown pigtails and the same big, brown eyes he knew so well. “Oh,” he whispered. Yuzuru didn’t know Javier had children.

Javier stepped away from Yuzuru and scooped the little girl up, settling her on his hip. “Princessa, remember the photos of Papa when he was skating? Remember the man who was always in them with Papa?” He smiled at Yuzuru, seeming unbothered by the child creasing his suit jacket. “This is Yuzuru, a very old friend of Papa’s.”

Yuzuru swallowed hard, smiling tightly as he looked at her. “Hi. What’s your name?”

She put her finger in her mouth, smiling shyly as she tucked her face into Javier’s shoulder. “Un-uh.”

Javier chuckled. “Sorry, she’s shy. This is Isabela. Can you show Yuzuru how old you are?” he prompted. Yuzuru’s heart ached some when she held up four adorable little fingers. 

“She’s beautiful,” Yuzuru breathed, looking between the two of them. “I hadn’t heard. I would have- have sent a gift if I knew,” he stuttered out.

Javier waved a hand. “It’s fine. You haven’t really talked to anybody, so nobody expected anything.” He grinned. “Come on, you have to come down to the party. Everybody will be so happy to see you!”

Yuzuru nodded mutely, still looking at the child in Javier’s arms. “Okay.”

The party was in full swing when they got downstairs, with music and laughter. There were skaters he knew, skaters he never met, and everybody that was once his skating family all there. When Javier called, ‘look who I found!’, a loud commotion went up and Tracy actually yelped in shock, covering her mouth. “Oh my God!” She rushed over and hugged him so hard it hurt. “Oh, Yuzu! I haven’t seen you in years! Look at you,” she gushed, holding his shoulders to look at him. “I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said, and Yuzuru panicked some when she began to tear up and her voice got thick. “God, and you found Javi, my partners in crime together again.”

It didn’t hit Yuzuru until just then that he had missed her, too. He smiled brightly, knowing there were tears in his eyes, too, when Brian caught up with her and pulled Yuzuru into a hug as well. “Hey, Brian,” he said hoarsely against his shoulder. “Sorry it’s been so long.”

“I’m just glad you’re here now,” Brian said, voice sounding similarly thick against Yuzuru’s shoulder, too. After that, they broke apart with laughs and everybody else wanted to talk to Yuzuru, too. 

The three hours at that part ended up being the best night Yuzuru had had in years, and he actually felt a little less like it hurt to breathe the whole night long. 

~

After the party ended, Yuzuru stuck around to help Brian and Tracy clean up even though they had sent everybody else home. “You know me, I like to clean,” Yuzuru had said dismissively. When they finished, however, he looked around and spotted Isabela sleeping on a couch. “Um, Brian?” he called, pointing to the child asleep under her father’s jacket. “Where did Javi go?”

Brian chuckled. “Skating, probably. I told him he’s gonna break a hip, but he won’t stop.”

Yuzuru frowned. “Skating? Why would he bring his skates?” he asked.

Tracy and Brian exchanged looks and Tracy smiled. “I forget, you don’t know all that much anymore.” She sat down with a sigh and Brian joined her. Yuzuru went and sat as well. “Javi works here. He’s a coach now.”

Yuzuru beamed. “Oh really? He always did want to be a coach.”

Brian nodded. “Yeah, he had a thing going in Spain for a while. He built a training center, if you can believe it,” he said, looking proud. “But he’s been here for two years now.”

Yuzuru hummed and nodded. “So his family lives here?” he asked, and Tracy and Brian’s faces fell some. “What?”

Tracy sighed, looking over at the sleeping child. “I think that’s something you should let him tell you. It’s not really our place.”

“In fact, why don’t you go see join him?” Brian suggested. “He’s got the keys to lock up. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind seeing the old rink again. If you want, I’m sure there’s some skates your size somewhere.”

Yuzuru shuddered before he could stop himself and control it. “No. I- I don’t skate,” he said plainly. He could see the pain and sympathy in their eyes and he forced a smile and stood up. “I’ll go walk around though. Revisit the old place.”

~

Yuzuru walked to the edge of the ice and just looked at it. He could remember every morning, touching that ice in greeting. The sound of blades scraping on the ice and the echoes of the large area really brought him back. He looked up to see Javi doing the same old stroking passes and he got a lump in his throat as he remembered so much he had tried to hard to never think about again. His time here had been the best part of his life and he missed it so much it hurt to breathe. 

He didn’t realize he was crying until Javier spotted him and skated over. “Yuzu!” he said excitedly, only to slow to a stop in front of him, his smile falling away and leaving a look of concern behind. “You okay?” he asked. 

Yuzuru smiled and laughed wetly. “Yes. I am,” he confessed. He wiped at his face with a small groan. “I still cry so easily. Silly, huh? I’m thirty-three. I should be over this.”

Javier looked into his eyes and it was like time had never existed, because Yuzuru could tell that Javier still understood him even without words. “No. Sometimes crying is good. I can imagine it’s overwhelming to be somewhere with so many memories after so long.” He reached out and like old times, his hand just naturally went to Yuzuru’s waist and rested there like they hadn’t spent nearly a decade without seeing each other. “Want to skate and talk?” he asked.

Yuzuru shook his head, smiling sadly. “I haven’t set foot on ice in eight years.”

Javier searched his eyes for a while before nodding. “Okay. Want to sit and talk instead?”

Yuzuru nodded. “Sure.”

They sat on the bench and faced the ice. “So, how have you been?” Javier asked, and when Yuzuru looked at him, he knew he didn’t just want idle chatter. 

Yuzuru laughed humorlessly, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Some days are good. Some aren’t. My sister has two kids. Little girls. One is the same age as yours. I probably wouldn’t leave my house if it wasn’t to go visit my sister’s family.”

Javier watched him closely. “Are you… well?” he asked as delicately as one could and still say what one meant.

Yuzuru snorted and laughed. “Yeah, I haven’t done drugs or had alcohol since I got caught,” he said bluntly. Javier looked sad. “I don’t even think I was an addict. I think I just liked not feeling. Rehab was easy, really. I decided to straighten myself out and didn’t really miss it when I was sober enough to realize I was hurting the people who loved me.” He looked at Javier. “Now you. Why did Tracy tell me to ask you about your family?”

Javier chuckled dryly. “Oh, because my wife left me,” he said and Yuzuru looked at him in surprise. “And it gets worse,” he added humorlessly. 

“How?” Yuzuru asked in confusion.

Javier gritted his teeth and then exhaled. “Because we built a training center together and she told me when we were getting divorced that I had to choose the training center or parental rights.” Yuzuru’s jaw dropped. “Basically, she said if I gave her all the business rights and all the money, she would let me take the baby. Obviously, I chose that, my God, I built a business I cared about, but it’s my _child_ ,” he stressed. “I sued her for full rights after that, and we settled with a clean break. She got the business, I got my daughter.” He shook his head. “Tracy and Brian are the reason I have a job and Isabela and I aren’t living with my parents. It’s been two years living here with her, and honestly, I think we’re better off.”

“That’s horrible,” Yuzuru blurted out. “God, how can a mother be that way? How could she be so willing to just hand off her child like that like she doesn’t care? My mother-“ Yuzuru stopped sharply and his breath caught painfully. He closed his eyes and fought the way his lip trembled.

Yuzuru never spoke about his mother. He never talked about her. Even now, the pain was so great he couldn’t bear to mention her. His father and sister had no problems, but he also recognized that she wasn’t their entire world the way she was to him. Yuzuru choked on his breath as he opened his eyes and looked at the ice he trained on for years and thought about the life he and his mother shared here where they were each other’s entire world. Being in Toronto just made him think of all the things she did for him and all the times she sat on this very bench, watching him preview his routines for her. 

Yuzuru didn’t realize Javier had even moved until he was pulled into a hug. “Oh, Yuzu,” he whispered, and Yuzuru just _let go_. He clung to Javier, sobbing into his chest. “When I heard the news, I knew it would be what broke you. I just didn’t realize how badly until the scandal came out. Everybody loved her here.”

Yuzuru didn’t bother holding it in. “I can’t- I can’t look at the ice without missing her. I hated skating because I was on my way here when she- when it happened. I barely made it back to Japan. My father- my father said he thinks she held on so long because she didn’t want to leave me without me getting to say goodbye. She had decided to take a later flight than me because it was my uncle’s birthday. She was on the way to the airport and I always feel like it’s my fault. I know it’s not, but it feels so much like it is,” he sobbed. “If I wasn’t a figure skater, if I didn’t take her away from the rest of our family for so much of a decade maybe fate wouldn’t have taken her from me! I wanted to die, too, Jabi,” he confessed. “My mom was everything to me. She gave her life to let me live mine and she was my best friend and my closest companion and the only person I could ever talk to. When I lost her, I didn’t want to live anymore!”

Javier shushed him, holding him close. “I know. I know, Yuzu. I understand everything because I saw her here all the time. She was the most amazing mother I ever knew. We all loved her here.”

Yuzuru calmed down a little. “When she died, Yuzuru Hanyu died with her,” he said more plainly. “Everything I was stopped. I survived so many things, but who I was couldn’t survive that.” He sat up and looked at Javier. “Everything I used to be, it was all because of her.”

Javier smiled sadly and, to Yuzuru’s shock, he gently cupped Yuzuru’s face in his hands and wiped his tears away. “Aw, and here I thought everything you had was because of me,” he quoted at him, and Yuzuru understood instantly. He laughed wetly, remembering all the times he gushed to anybody who would listen about the wonders of Javier Fernandez. “There’s that beautiful smile,” he mumbled, brushing his thumbs across Yuzuru’s cheekbones. 

Yuzuru sniffled and smiled sadly. “You do know I was in love with you, right? All that hero-worship, it was because of that.”

Javier hummed and released his face, slinging an arm around his shoulders to tug him into his side as they faced the ice again. “I figured. I was too afraid to ever kiss you, though,” he said, and Yuzuru couldn’t help but smile as he looked out at the ice and laid his head on Javier’s shoulder. 

They sat in silence, watching the ghosts of the past Javi and Yuzu skating invisible lines across the ice that made them into champions, rivals, and friends. Some hurts never healed. Some pains never faded. But some memories were worth revisiting in the company of someone who helped shape each other’s lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me, you asked for me to post this on twitter!


End file.
